


As Athera

by ConvenientAlias



Category: Shades of Magic - V. E. Schwab
Genre: Brothers, Character Study, Gen, Pre-Canon, Reverse Chronology, Sort Of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-17
Updated: 2017-12-17
Packaged: 2019-02-15 22:54:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,199
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13041213
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ConvenientAlias/pseuds/ConvenientAlias
Summary: As Athera: To grow.(Though sometimes it's hard to tell whether Kell and Rhy are growing together or apart.)





	As Athera

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MercyBuckets](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MercyBuckets/gifts).



Rhy hasn’t given up on prying Kell out of his room but it feels like it gets harder every day. Not that it’s impossible to get him out of the castle, exactly. But trying to get him to actually interact with other people…there’s the rub. He rarely sees Kell going out of his own accord these days, not to talk to people or hang around crowds. No, that’s always Rhy’s job.

He pries him loose again tonight the same way as usual. “I thought we’d go out to the tavern.”

“Rhy, I’m not in the mood.”

“It could be dangerous. It’s all the way on the other side of town, and I’m going all by myself. I’ve decided to pay for everyone’s drinks there with gold coins. They’re more impressive.”

“Rhy.” One eyed glare, black and gold eye still covered by hair. Why Kell is so shy about it Rhy will never understand, not when most everyone in the city sees it as a benediction.

They argue a while longer, but Kell’s already getting out of his chair, picking up his all-purpose jacket. He doesn’t bother to fetch money—doubtless that’s inside the jacket somewhere.

So they wander down to a bar (and Rhy doesn’t have any big plans for the night, really, just wanted to get Kell out of the foul mood it seems like he’s always in) and Rhy doesn’t actually pay with gold coins but everyone recognizes him anyhow. Of course they do. They always do.

Kell is as melancholy as a clam. He sips beer and scowls whenever Rhy starts flirting with anyone. Worse, when a nice woman comes up to him and starts asking him about himself, he rejects her with a few polite but indifferent phrases, sends her scuttling back across the room.

“You could try to smile a little,” Rhy mutters to him, turning away from the man he’s been flirting with for a minute. “Come on, the beer can’t be that bad.”

“You know I don’t like bars,” Kell says, and Rhy can’t help but think that maybe the issue isn’t that they’re in a tavern but that he’s in this one and with Rhy, because only a couple months ago he seemed happy enough to talk about

* * *

 

“The Stone’s Throw,” Kell says with a big smile on his face. “That’s the best place to drink in London—any of the Londons, Rhy—You’d love it. It’s not quite the same here, even though it still exists.”

It’s one of the only times that Rhy’s been able to get him to talk about the other Londons at any length, apart from the details of his official visits. He’d known Kell liked to walk around a bit before coming back, which made sense—using blood magic was exhausting, after all, and besides, who wouldn’t want to explore another world a little? Rhy has always reasoned that this is what makes it okay that Kell can never leave London as Rhy can: He has other places to go. But while he likes to picture Kell admiring the view of a fairly different Seine or sight-seeing at museums where the history of art follows a different trajectory, he’s always somewhat figured Kell really just walked around on the street a bit and came straight back. That’s Kell, always dutiful and serious.

But tonight, after a little more wine than usual, Kell has been unusually talkative on the matter. He ranted briefly earlier about how much he hates the prince regent of so-called “Grey London”, waxed angrily poetic on the disturbing smells of “White London”, and now has settled down to finally talk about something he likes.

“It’s a good place to meet enthusiasts, too,” Kell says. “Everyone comes to the Stone’s Throw. They can sense something just like I can.” He stares down at the veins on his arm as if mesmerized. “In their blood, Rhy. Magic’s always in the blood. Did you know that?”

Rhy shudders. He backtracks to, “Enthusiasts? And who are they?”

“Oh, I guess that’s just what I call them. They like magic. They like anything to do with magic. Like I said, in the blood.” He’s in a morbid mood tonight, despite his cheerfulness. Darkness and levity exist in Kell in a balance, or so it has always seemed to Rhy. It’s partly his sense of humor, but only partly.

“Grey London doesn’t know about magic,” Rhy says. He’s missing something.

“People can sense that they’re missing something,” Kell says. “The whole world’s dried up. Of course they know it. It’s a little bleak. Still, they come to the Stone’s Throw.” He smiles confidentially and says, “Sometimes I give them a little hope.”

“You…”

“Well, just small tricks,” Kell says. “And sometimes I give them things. Everything from our world has a certain feeling to it, you know? A scent…Enthusiasts like that sort of thing. They don’t need anything too exciting.” He shrugs. Loose, looser than Rhy has seen him in a long time. “It’s nice to see what our world means to them.”

“No one from their world is supposed to even know about our world,” Rhy says. “You’re saying you tell people, and you leave things from here with them. That’s treason.”

Kell frowns. He only seems to half comprehend what Rhy is saying, but he doesn’t like it. “You know I’m loyal to the Crown.”

The Crown. The royal family. He always uses such phrases rather than calling Father and Mother family. Rhy supposes he’s lucky Kell hasn’t decided yet to disown him too. “Kell. Does anyone know you do this?”

“Well, a few people…”

He told others before Rhy? Trusted others before Rhy? “Who?”

“Enthusiasts.” Kell shrugs again. He leans forward to pour himself another glass of wine, but Rhy grabs his hand.

“You’re insane. You’re telling me you’ve been bringing things to other worlds—smuggling—this entire time, and you aren’t even worried about it?”

“It doesn’t do any harm.”

“Smuggling doesn’t do any harm?”

“No one else even has contact with Grey London, it’s not like…”

“If you get caught you could be thrown in prison!” That probably wouldn’t happen, not when Father and Mother see Kell as a son (no matter how Kell claims otherwise) but Kell could still get into serious trouble. Being an Antari messenger is a huge responsibility, and if Kell has been abusing it to break the law… “What are you thinking?”

Kell shrugs again.

Rhy still grips his wrist. “You have to promise me not to do it again.”

“Rhy…”

“You have to promise me!”

Kell glares and mutters something. Rhy feels his own hand release Kell’s wrist and return, reluctantly, forcibly, to his side.

“Bone magic?” Rhy’s voice sounds like steel. He does not feel this solidity. “You decided you wanted to break as many laws as possible tonight?”

“I haven’t smuggled since…”

“It doesn’t matter. Never again.”

Kell won’t promise anything that night. Rhy goes to bed discontented, feeling the bones and joints in his hand as if they belong to another, estranged from his own body. Of course Kell would never think about something like that, because

* * *

 

“Of course you don’t understand! You’re an Antari. You can do whatever you want.”

It’s two hours into a practice session and Rhy is fed up. He still can barely move the elements on an element board, even now, even in his late teens. He wants to end the lesson and continue it at the same time. What he really wants is to be able to do it right.

He stands up with a jerk and begins to pace. When he glances at the board, he sees Kell has casually turned the water to ice, just to amuse himself.

“Turn it back. I’m not done.”

“I thought we could stop for the night. We’ve been trying for an hour.”

Sometimes Kell is the harsh taskmaster, encouraging Rhy to study for hours on end. Other days he gets bored too quickly, restless. That, too, is probably because he’s an Antari. So why should he care about stupid petty magic like this when he can walk between worlds or bend lampposts or…

(Or heal but Rhy doesn’t like thinking about that.)

“Why can’t I just get it right?” Rhy says. He’s on the verge of screaming, but he won’t do that. Kell is one of the few people in the world he’s willing to embarrass himself in front of, but he still doesn’t like it.

“You’ll get it right eventually.” But Kell’s expression is neutral, fake. He doesn’t care about Rhy’s training, doesn’t see why he wants to control the elements at all.

“This is important, Kell. People will never respect a man who can’t use magic but somehow ended up being king anyhow.”

“You didn’t just ‘end up’ being king.”

“Do you have any idea what kind of political implications a weak king has?”

Kell sighs. He pinches the bridge of his nose, fingers threading through his limp red bangs. “Everyone in the kingdom likes and respects you, Rhy.”

“No they don’t. And what about foreigners? Plenty of people will never respect me if I can’t. Get this. Right.”

Kell says,

* * *

 

“Rhy, it’s all right. Plenty of people like you. You don’t need…”

“I know I don’t need him, do you think I don’t know that?” Rhy is bent over in half, a little ball on his bed, arms clasped around his legs. “I’m a goddamn prince. I know I don’t need some stupid, good-looking…”

He’s been crying for almost an hour now, though Kell’s only been sitting with him for half of it. And it makes him feel dumb, the fact that he’s crying at all, and especially crying over a man like Alucard who everyone knows is a player, everyone knows is never serious with anyone, but somehow he still thought until this afternoon that what they had was…

He can’t even finish that sentence. It’s the most naïve he’s ever been. He thought he was smarter than this.

“I thought he liked me.”

“Of course he liked you. Everyone likes you.”

“If he liked me,” Rhy says with a lopsided smile, “then I guess it wasn’t enough. Well, why would it be? I’m just a prince. Nothing so great about that.”

“You deserve better than him,” Kell says. He squeezes Rhy’s shoulder. “There will be other pretty boys…”

“Of course there will be. I can get anyone.” Rhy is angry at this. He never kissed anyone before Alucard but he knows people like him, knows he could if he tried. He just never wanted to before. “I know all that, Kell. You don’t have to keep preaching to me.”

“What do you want me to do?”

“Go away,” he says. He points angrily at the door.

He doesn’t talk to Kell about Alucard again, even when Kell asks him how he’s doing, how he feels. Even when he sees Alucard again at a party that week and it pierces him through and he has to run away and almost throws up on the street. Kell follows him and walks him home and tries to talk to him. Kell doesn’t talk.

That’s when Alucard disappears.

And, Rhy knows, that’s why Alucard disappears.

Plausible deniability—Kell never gives him specifics. But when Father asks Kell to find Alucard and Kell says yes, he looks over at Rhy and there’s something in his expression, a little defiance, a little satisfaction. So. It’s Kell’s fault, whatever it is.

Rhy spends a few days wondering what it is Kell did. He wavers between blackmail and murder, unsure which he wants it to be. The part of him that still loves Alucard and slightly believes they can get back together again wants to think he gave Alucard a stern talking to and calmly suggested he go. The darker part of him thinks, Kell can control bones. It thinks of breaking ribs and arms, a chest cavity caving into the heart. It thinks of a million other ways Alucard could have gone too. Fire, water, earth, air—Kell could have done anything. Set Alucard ablaze or shot him through with ice or rock or even stolen the breath from his lungs. Could have killed Alucard in his sleep or challenged him to a duel—either way it’s no match. Either way Kell avenges Rhy’s honor.

Rhy fantasizes about it and then feels bad about imagining his brother as monstrous, when Kell already feels inhuman for being an Antari. Realistically it was the former. No murder, no violence.

But it could have been either. Rhy knows this because

* * *

 

Kell thinks Rhy’s happiness is worth the measure of another’s life.

Even if the life is his own.

The darkest memory Rhy has is waking up to blood soaking through his shirt. For a moment he doesn’t even know it’s blood. He’s young. Then he recognizes the smell. Then he recognizes the person  lying unconscious on top of him, the red hair and the messy jacket and the pale, pale skin.

He screams and he screams and he screams. And Kell turns out to be alive. But not from a lack of effort on Kell’s part, and not through any help of Rhy’s.

This is Rhy’s darkest memory. It is the one he would like most to forget. It is the one he forces himself daily to remember.

He has to

* * *

“Take care of Kell,” Master Tieren says.

Rhy is a little taken aback. He has never talked to Master Tieren alone before but Tieren took him aside for a private conversation today, as another priest works with Kell to move his belongings out of the sanctuary.

He is taken aback because it’s a presumptuous thing to ask of a prince, of a future king. It’s  a presumptuous thing to ask of anyone who isn’t close to you, and Tieren and Rhy are hardly close.

He is also surprised because, after all, he’s the one who asked that Kell be moved to the palace in the first place. Of course he’ll take care of him. Isn’t that much obvious?

But, “He is not used to living as a prince, although he is one,” Master Tieren says. “I know you mean well by this change. But you must take care of him.”

Rhy nods solemnly. “I will.”

And although it’s an odd request, he feels somehow that, despite all his duties as crown prince, this is the most serious thing anyone has ever asked of him.

(Well. He is young.)

He takes it seriously, too. He helps Kell move in, even tries to help Kell decorate his room. Kell hates the tapestries and pictures he chooses, the urn with a house plant Rhy obtains at the market, even the little statuette that he tries to put on Kell’s bookcase, a figure of a mythical past Antari. He doesn’t complain about them but he makes a very neutral face when he thanks Rhy for them. Rhy quietly steals them back while Kell is out of the room.

Kell likes his room very empty. He doesn’t keep many magic knickknacks, defying Rhy’s expectations. He seems like the bookworm type but he doesn’t even keep that many books.

 _Take care of Kell_. Rhy doesn’t seem to be doing a very good job.

He tries even harder. Starts aggressively calling Kell “Brother” at court and especially in front of his parents, who painfully smile at his earnestness. Starts inviting Kell along to every party he ever attends. It’s not that many due to his age, but it’s enough—many nobles are young too, and when they invite Rhy over, they soon find Kell gets tugged along whether they and Kell, like it or not.

Kell goes along with everything without question. Then one day Rhy comes into his room and says, “We’re going to a party at the Rosec manor in town, there are going to be fire dancers and imported wine…”

And Kell says, “You know I don’t like wine and I don’t like the Rosecs.”

This is true. Kell grumbles whenever they visit the Rosecs, makes a couple snide comments about how extravagant they are. Rhy has always ignored this because everyone in the city is extravagant—well, everyone of means. Kell isn’t, but he only gets away with that because first of all he’s a prince and second of all he’s an Antari and he doesn’t need to impress anyone.

“It’ll be fun,” Rhy says. “Come on. We’ll miss you if you aren’t there.”

Kell rolls his eyes. “I think I’ll sit this one out. I’m tired. I don’t have anything good to wear. And I have to study.” A whole slew of excuses.

Some of them might be legitimate, so Rhy allows him to get away with it and leaves. It is only when he is halfway to the Rosec manor, with a few companions in tow, that he realizes Kell has never refused to go anywhere with him. And, when he thinks about it, Kell has become more and more critical around him lately. He grumbles more, he complains more. Around anyone but Rhy he might not have complained about the Rosecs at all.

Rhy thinks about that. He wonders if Kell used to complain to Master Tieren. He wonders if Kell will ever show this side to Father and Mother. Probably not. Probably not.

But there’s something rather pleasant about the fact that Kell shows it to him, even if it is a little gruff and annoyingly grumpy. Maybe Rhy isn’t doing such a bad job of Master Tieren’s request after all.

It’s all very…

Very…

Very…?

* * *

 

“Rhy. Rhy! Damn it. Are you even awake? Just how much did you drink?”

Rhy blinks.

No, that’s not right. “I was thinking about things.”

“Are you thinking about going home?”

Rhy grimaces. “We haven’t been out for that long. A little longer.”

“No, I think we’d better go. You’re in an odd mood tonight.” Kell frowns. He brushes a hand against Rhy’s forehead. “Maybe you’re getting…”

“I’m not sick, Mother.” Rhy pushes Kell back. “Although it’s sweet to see you fussing around I am perfectly fine. And we should stay out later.”

But Kell drags him out of the bar. On the street, Rhy admits that he might be a little more intoxicated than he realized. Not bad though, really, considering his own records. Not bad at all.

“You’d take any excuse to go home and get to bed.”

“I’m tired.” Like Kell isn’t always tired.

“You should socialize more. There was a girl there that wanted to talk to you. Why did you send her away like that?”

“I didn’t send her away.”

“You scowled.”

“Well.” Kell shrugged. “You know I don’t like…”

“Anyone.” Rhy laughs a little. Sometimes he thinks Kell is a tragedy, sometimes he thinks Kell is hilarious. “Except me.”

“Well, sometimes I hate you.”

“No you don’t.”

Kell sighs. Always sighing. He puts an arm around Rhy’s waist. “We’re going home.”

“You call it home now.”

“What?”

“Nothing.” He nuzzles Kell’s shoulder. “All right, brother. Retreat to your room if you want to. I’m a bit tired tonight myself.”

**Author's Note:**

> To my recipient: I intended to write a post-ACOL fic for you, but I could not get a hold of ACOL so as of now I still have not read it. I tried my best to write a Kell & Rhy fic you might like anyhow. It's a bit of a collage more than a single story, but I think it's somewhat coherent?   
> Some elements, of course, are a little AU. The smuggling reveal scene, for instance--we get a flashback in ADSOM and things go somewhat differently (and honestly Schwab writes it better than I ever could) but I was playing around with possibilities. I hope you enjoyed.


End file.
